Goodbye, Hello

 

Moving into the new place, while remnants of the Red Dress Race raged on around us.

So we're moved in now.  'Moved in' being not the same thing as unpacked or totally settled.   But it's good.  I've found all my work clothes now, so the mornings aren't as mad of a dash from room to room diving up to my elbows into bags and boxes trying to find a cardigan.  And the fleas are gone.  (Mostly).  I know.  I couldn't believe it.  Combine the presence of biting insects in our new place with an AC that refused to go lower than a moist 87 and I felt like I was losing my mind.  Fortunately, my sister was here.  (She was incredibly helpful, as usual, and has experience with my bouts of semi-madness.)  The AC guy came and worked his magic, and then pest control sprayed the place on Thursday, and our ankles all rejoice.

This weekend we co-hosted a party in our courtyard, which featured a snow-cone machine (Pineapple mint juice + rum sno-ball?!  Yes.), and an enormous hunk of brisket cooked in the homemade brick oven.  New friends from my new (awesome) job came, and Aeli was a charmer, true to form.

It's a good place, this new one.  We're especially excited to be across-the-street-neighbors with a couple of our best friends in the city.  We stopped by the old place today to pick up the cat (who our old neighbors had been watching due to the flea-issue at the new apartment), and visited Miss Sadie.  She told us she walked out onto her porch today, looked out at our old place and said, "Man, I can't believe those kids don't live over there anymore.  Now I don't have any reason to cross the street."  She gave us popsicles and told us about how she and her siblings used to pick mangoes on the hillside in Honduras.  There'll be no replacing Miss Sadie.

There are lots of good folks on this block too. 

I think it is good that we spent the first eight months of Aeli's life at our little house in Mid-City.  Although it was less in-the-thick-of-it than some other parts of the city (like, here), it meant a lot of focused family time.  Quiet walks, sits on the front steps, slow Saturdays in our private backyard.  I feel so lucky we got that time together.  It was a little bubble of cozy.  Now it's more urban.  From the front room, we can hear folks' conversations as they walk by.  There are fewer big windows and we actually have to make diligent use of the blinds.  In a silly way, it's like we're reintegrating with the part of the city we used to be a part of. 

This city, man.  It gets its hooks in you.

Aeli in our old kitchen.